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Series Code: CW
Program Code: CW000002S
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00:06 - Oh yes, stay right there, I'll be right back. 00:10 (bright upbeat music) 00:13 Hey, welcome everybody to Talking Donkey International 00:16 and our new television series, Country Wisdom. 00:19 - Let's set the tone for this new series of ours. 00:22 It's found in Proverbs four, 00:24 "let your eyes look directly forward 00:27 and your gaze be straight before you. 00:30 Ponder the path of your feet, 00:33 and then all your ways will be sure." 00:36 - Join us now for Country Wisdom. 00:38 (bright upbeat music) 00:49 - This whole area is high desert. 00:51 As you can see it's filled with rocks, a lot of dust, 00:56 Mesquite, Junipers, but there's something else, 00:59 that this whole area is full of, 01:03 caves. 01:06 They can go on for miles, 01:08 they can be way deeper than they look. 01:11 And you know, I can't help but think 01:14 that as often as I've been down 01:15 in some of these caves in this area, 01:19 I have been in a cave of a different type, way too often. 01:23 Because, periodically due to circumstances 01:27 of whatever my own fears, 01:29 I have found myself retreating into an emotional cave. 01:34 A cave of depression, of fear, of anxiety, 01:37 where I am not really functioning like I usually do, 01:41 like I'm supposed to. 01:44 And I've discovered though that even when I have been deep 01:48 and dark in a cave, 01:52 the moment that I actually turned my thoughts back to God, 01:56 instead of just inward into my own headspace, 02:00 which can be a dark place. 02:02 When I determined to turn to God, he's right there. 02:07 I mean, he'd been there the whole time. 02:09 I just wasn't seeing him 02:10 because I was looking inside so much, 02:14 but I turned to Him and every single time, 02:17 no matter how deep a cave I've dug for myself, 02:19 he's been right there. 02:21 - This is what's so exciting, Janice, 02:23 because he's the God of the mountaintops, 02:26 and he's also the God in the caves. 02:28 God is everywhere, 02:29 God is always searching for us, 02:31 and God always wants to help us. 02:33 - Exactly. 02:39 - I'm sure you're aware of Abraham Lincoln, 02:42 this amazing man in the United States, 02:44 but probably what you didn't realize, 02:46 are some of the things he said 02:47 and the things he felt in life. 02:50 I've got a little quote I'm gonna share with you. 03:09 Wow, what an unbelievable quote. 03:11 Then I have another one here I wanna share with you. 03:14 Spurgeon, greatest preacher maybe whoever lived. 03:18 He wrote a book, "Lectures to My Students", 03:20 and in those lectures, 03:22 he devoted an entire chapter to depression. 03:25 So listen, 03:35 We must at intervals be cast down. 03:37 You see, I believe God uses those times to lift us up 03:40 to remind us He's God. 03:54 You see, 03:57 being a Christian doesn't mean 03:58 you're always going to be happy, 04:00 you're always going to be joyous. 04:02 There was a man of God in the Bible. 04:04 And he's so interesting to me 04:06 because God doesn't sugar-coat his people in the Bible. 04:10 He lays it right out there. 04:12 And one of those men that had real troubles, 04:15 what would I say, a real cave experience, was Elijah. 04:19 Elijah was a tremendous man of God. 04:22 During his time, Ahab the king of Israel, 04:25 was a nasty, evil, ornery, vindictive man. 04:31 And he was leading quote, the children of Israel. 04:35 God told Elijah, "I want you to go tell that man, 04:37 I'm withholding, I'm closing up heaven. 04:39 I'm shutting off the rain so he knows who God really is." 04:43 Because they were worshiping Baal and all these other gods. 04:48 Elijah marches down to that castle. 04:50 He goes right in past the guards. 04:52 Nobody dare touch this man of God. 04:54 He walks right up to Ahab, 04:56 he puts his finger right in his face and said, 04:59 "look, there is a real God of heaven. 05:02 And you're going to know it, 05:03 God is shutting off the rains." 05:06 And he turned and he left. 05:09 Now God continued to feed this man 05:11 as the rain stopped in the country. 05:12 There were no more rain for three and a half years. 05:16 God continued to feed this man during that period. 05:20 And let me tell you if things got really bad, 05:22 why the moss that was once green and beautiful, 05:29 there was nothing anymore. 05:32 Ahab begins sending up scouts and people, little creeks 05:35 and things that there were still anything left 05:38 to find grass for the horses and the donkeys 05:40 and the various animals. 05:43 God took care of his man. 05:46 As we get toward the end of this timeframe, 05:51 God sent him to a person outside of Israel. 05:54 This woman who was a sweet, sweet, kind woman, 05:58 just her and her son lost her husband sometime ago. 06:03 The woman looked up at Elijah, she'd been gathering sticks 06:05 and he looked says, "please bring me some water." 06:10 She goes, she comes back, she brings him a cup of water. 06:13 And then he said, "bring me a little something to eat, 06:15 a little biscuit." 06:17 "Please sir, I only have enough meal 06:22 and just a little oil in the flask. 06:24 We were going to eat that ourselves and then die. 06:27 That's all we had." 06:29 He says, "you go ahead, get that for me first." 06:33 "Oh, real situation here, my son do I trust this guy 06:38 who I've never met? 06:40 But he seems different, he seems like I should trust him." 06:44 Well, she does. 06:45 And an amazing thing is, this went on for month 06:47 after month after month. 06:49 And the oil continued to stay in the flask 06:52 and the meal continued to stay. 06:54 It never ran out for such a long, long time. 06:59 And then one day, her son dies. 07:03 She goes to this man of God and she said, 07:05 "did you just do all this?" 07:06 She said, "just to bring me to this point 07:08 that my son is dead?" 07:12 He takes the son, he goes up into his upper chamber, 07:14 he lays the son out, he lays on top of him. 07:17 He prays to God, "God wake him up, heal him." 07:21 He does this time, after time, after time 07:23 still he gets up nothing. 07:25 And finally, all of a sudden, the child coughs, gasps 07:28 and he's fine. 07:29 Takes the child back to the mother. 07:32 What an amazing story. 07:35 But now God says, "Elijah it's time. 07:38 Go make yourself known to Ahab." 07:41 You see, Ahab had searched for a long, long time, 07:44 couldn't find this man of God. 07:46 Matter of fact, it was a situation 07:47 that every time someone spotted him, 07:50 this man of the king would run back the king and say, 07:52 "King I found him, I found him, bring all the army." 07:56 They get there, he wasn't around. 08:00 You see, God always told him what was going to happen, 08:02 and he would leave. 08:04 And Ahab would be so mad, he'd kill that man. 08:07 Well, finally, God says, "make yourself known." 08:11 So one day he placed himself exactly where he knows 08:14 that this man of Ahab is going to show up. 08:17 And certainly he does show up. 08:20 And this fellow was a believer in the true God. 08:22 He didn't wanna follow what Ahab said. 08:25 But he comes up to Elijah and Elijah says, 08:28 "hey, I want you to go tell Ahab where I am." 08:31 "Oh sir, huh, I can't do that, 08:34 because as soon as I go off and tell, you leave, 08:37 you'll go someplace else. 08:38 And when the army gets here, you'll be gone 08:41 and I'll be dead." 08:42 Well, Elijah tells him, "no, no, I will be here, 08:47 I will be here." 08:49 And so he runs off to go and tell the King. 08:52 (bright upbeat music) 08:58 For three and a half years, 09:00 this vengeful King had looked for this man of God. 09:03 And now he had him right there in front him. 09:05 He said, "you, you are the troubler of Israel." 09:09 Of course, Elijah said, "no, no king, 09:11 you have this all wrong. 09:13 You were the one, you and your people 09:14 have gone down the wrong path way. 09:17 You wanna know who God is? 09:18 I'll meet you on top of that mountain later today 09:21 and we will discover and find out 09:23 who the real God of heaven is. 09:25 (bright upbeat music) 09:33 On that fateful day, the people came from everywhere. 09:37 The word had gone out, 09:38 that the man of God was going to meet up 09:41 on the mountain top here. 09:43 What was going to happen? 09:44 Well, people came out just to know, 09:46 and they wanted to know 09:48 was there ever going to be any rain again? 09:51 Elijah on that day, set down the parameters. 09:54 He said, "look, here's the situation, 09:56 you people, you need to understand this, 10:00 if God be God, then serve Him, if Baal then serve him. 10:05 But choose you this day, whom you will serve. 10:08 It's just that simple, 10:09 make a choice in what you're going to do. 10:14 Look, we're going to bring up two bullocks. 10:16 You build your altar, however you want to your god, 10:19 and you put your bullock on it. 10:21 And I will reconstruct the alter of God 10:25 and put a bullock on it. 10:27 And then the God who answers by fire, he's God." 10:32 All the people said, "okay." 10:34 They were pretty quiet about it, 10:36 but I think there were some okays throughout that audience. 10:39 And so on that day they brought the bullocks, 10:42 they came together 10:44 and the priest began fashioning their alter, 10:47 whatever it was, and they placed the bullock on it, 10:49 and they began dancing. 10:55 To give you a little idea of the bedlam and the chaos 10:59 that were going on during this time, 11:01 there were 850 prophets of this false god. 11:05 They are out there, they're yelling and screaming 11:08 and hollering. 11:11 You know, God says, "be still, and know that I'm God." 11:16 He says, "relax, listen to the still, small voice of God." 11:19 God is not the author of chaos, 11:21 God is not the author of all the bedlam. 11:24 And that's exactly what these guys, picture 850 men, 11:28 they're out there, they're yelling, they're screaming, 11:31 they're taking knives, they're cutting themselves, 11:33 they're piercing themselves 11:35 until the blood is running everywhere 11:37 and they're shouting to their god. 11:41 It's kind of interesting, that Elijah said, 11:44 "hey fellows, maybe you should yell a little louder, 11:47 maybe, perhaps your god is asleep. 11:50 Or maybe, you know, your god's gone to the bathroom." 11:55 He just continues to kind of jab a little bit 11:57 because he knows there is no God there. 12:02 Well, they continue, they continue, 12:03 they're doing this all morning into afternoon, 12:06 still in the afternoon, these guys are getting so tired. 12:10 They've gone on and on and on, and they're just about dying, 12:13 they're so tired, can't hardly stand. 12:16 And there's still no fire coming down on the alter. 12:22 There is nothing happening, not at all. 12:25 And about that time, Elijah said, "okay, it's my turn." 12:29 And he goes to prepare his altar. 12:34 You know scripture says, "it was about the time 12:37 of the evening sacrifice." 12:39 Everything is in God's timing, always, 12:41 always in God's timing. 12:44 And Elijah began gathering up the stones, 12:48 to reconstruct the old alter that had fallen down 12:51 from disrepair, disuse, because the people no longer worship 12:55 the God of heaven. 12:57 He gathered 12 stones. 12:58 The 12 stones represented the 12 tribes of Israel. 13:03 Now, we talk about a sacrificial system 13:05 and sacrifice was not something they just did 13:08 to appease a God. 13:09 No, no, a sacrifice was to train the people 13:13 that one day Jesus Christ, the God of the heavens himself 13:17 would come down and lay out 13:19 and be sacrificed for the people. 13:21 That's the difference between the god that they worshiped, 13:26 you know, cutting themselves and doing all these things. 13:28 They wanted to appease an angry god, 13:30 but that's not the God of heaven. 13:33 The God of heaven, building the altar, laying down upon it, 13:37 being sacrificed for the good of all humanity. 13:41 That's who this God is, that's who this God is, 13:44 that Elijah wanted to begin pointing everybody back to. 13:47 So he gathered all the stones. 13:49 He prepared the sacrifice just absolutely perfectly. 13:54 He sent men all the way down to the ocean 13:56 to gather barrels of water. 13:57 While they were gathering those barrels of water, 14:00 he dug a huge trench around the altar, a great deep trench. 14:04 And these men brought back a barrel of water, 14:06 they dumped it in the trench. 14:08 He said, "go a second time." 14:10 He brought another one dumped in the second way. 14:12 He said, "go a third time." 14:13 They poured water all over everything. 14:16 So everything was just running drenched 14:18 and water everywhere. 14:21 And then he got down on his knees and he said, 14:23 "God, so these people know who you are. 14:27 I'm your man here, Lord, 14:29 and I prayed to you and ask you Lord, please, please, Lord. 14:35 You answer this prayer." 14:36 Let me read to you just a little piece here. 14:39 A little windy today, if I can hold my Bible open. 14:43 His prayer was, "thou art the God of Israel, 14:46 and that I am thy servant in that I've done all these things 14:49 at thy word." 14:51 He wasn't doing this on his own, it was God's word. 14:53 And this was found in 1st Kings 18:36 and 37, now, 14:58 "hear me O Lord, hear me that this people may know 15:01 that thou art the Lord God. 15:02 And that thou has turned their heart back again." 15:07 And then the fire of the Lord, verse 38, 15:09 "the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt offering, 15:13 consume the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the dust, 15:20 and licked up the water around the trench." 15:22 Even licked up the water around the trench, 15:25 and the thousands and thousands of people 15:27 who were standing around, went down on their faces, said, 15:30 "truly, truly, this is the God of the universe." 15:35 You see, it's so easy to forget who God is. 15:39 As time goes on, we slowly 15:41 and imperceptibly forget who He is. 15:44 If we don't see big manifestations of God every day, 15:47 we just tend to slowly but surely forget. 15:51 How do you get that back? 15:54 While you studied God's word, you listen to God, 15:57 you follow the stories of the Bible 15:59 and realize who the true God is. 16:04 And at that moment, Elijah gets up 16:07 and tells all the people to kill the prophets of Baal. 16:10 You can't have good and evil existing in the same place. 16:13 And they kill all those prophets. 16:15 And then he gets up and he walks over to Ahab. 16:19 He says, "Ahab, I hear the sound of an abundance of rain." 16:26 Ahab says, "I don't hear anything, I don't see anything." 16:31 See, what can I say? Elijah had the ears of faith. 16:36 (bright upbeat music) 16:54 But as the clamor and the people begin to dissipate, 16:58 Elijah waited for that time when he could be quiet and calm. 17:01 Now, after all the commotion, 17:04 he began praying to God about the rain. 17:07 He sent his man, his servant out to the edge of the cliff 17:10 to overlook the sea and tell him if he saw anything 17:14 comes back, 'my Lord, nothing." 17:16 Sends him again and again and again, seven times, 17:20 went seven times. 17:21 And finally, on that seventh time, he came back. 17:23 "Lord, I, I see a small cloud, the size of a man's hand." 17:28 Well, that was good enough for Elijah. 17:30 He was a man of faith, a powerful man of faith. 17:32 And he said, "okay." 17:34 And God gave him tremendous energy at that moment, 17:38 he wanted to catch up to King Ahab. 17:40 And matter of fact, he ran down the mountain, 17:43 caught up to Ahab and first 30 miles, 17:46 he ran in front of the chariot. 17:49 Can't even hardly imagine it, but God's power, 17:52 we can do anything in life. 17:53 (bright upbeat music) 18:01 Hey Janice. 18:02 - Hey Jim, how'd it go up there? 18:03 - Oh it went really well. 18:05 We were able to tell a lot of the story of Elijah, 18:09 right up to the point 18:11 where he's running ahead of the chariot for 30 miles. 18:14 Now, apparently I can't really tell, 18:16 but he stopped short of getting to Jezebel, 18:18 apparently that was a pretty good deal. 18:20 - (Janice laughing) 18:21 Good choice. 18:22 Oh, Ahab, her husband, King goes (mumbles) 18:26 and I can just picture him tail between his legs, 18:29 all defeated. 18:30 She goes, "hey, how did things go?" 18:33 And he probably started the sob story, of, 18:37 "you won't believe what Elijah did," 18:39 you know, "the fire thing down." 18:42 And he's just defeated, he's curled up maybe in his bed, 18:46 calling for something warm to drink. 18:48 And just, "I wanna forget about the day." 18:50 And she is on the warpath. 18:54 When she heard that all of her prophets were dead, 18:58 she was on the warpath. 19:01 Have you ever seen a really angry woman? 19:05 - I don't know, I'm not gonna say. 19:07 (Jim laughing) 19:08 - I won't ask, but she was steamed, 19:11 where Ahab is all defeated, 19:14 she is out for blood. 19:16 In fact, she got a messenger and she said, 19:18 "you go out and you find that meddling little prophet, 19:21 and you tell him, may the gods do to me 19:24 what you've done to my prophets, if within the next day, 19:28 by this time tomorrow, you're not dead." 19:32 And she meant it, she had the resources for it. 19:36 I think Jezebel ran the kingdom, 19:38 because Ahab was fairly weak, 19:39 he would have done anything she said. 19:42 She was giving orders, 'you get those soldiers, 19:44 you get and you find him, and you kill him." 19:49 - And when he got that message, 19:50 that was a turning point for him. 19:52 All of a sudden, for some reason, 19:54 he focuses on that message. 19:56 He focuses on Jezebel, 19:58 he loses his focus on God and he runs. 20:02 (bright upbeat music) 20:16 He's lost all reason, he's running, he's running, 20:20 he's running. 20:21 And he doesn't stop to think 20:22 about all that God had done for him. 20:25 And we pick up the story in chapter 19 20:27 of 1st Kings verse four, it said, 20:29 "he came and he sat down under a juniper tree. 20:33 He was so tired, he was so beat, 20:36 he laid down and he goes to sleep. 20:38 And he gets kind of a tap on the shoulder. 20:41 He wakes up and there's an angel there. 20:43 And the angel prepared a cake, a little fire, a cake, 20:46 and some water for him, 20:47 "so drink, you've got a long journey." 20:49 He eats, drinks, goes back to sleep. 20:53 Later on, he wakes up again, another tap, 20:55 the angel again, prepared more food. 20:57 And he said, 'eat now." 20:58 He said, "you're going to need your strength 21:00 for your journey." 21:02 I think God is so amazing. He's so incredible. 21:05 He knew Elijah was not doing his will. 21:08 He knew that he was not supposed to be running away 21:11 from the fight away from Ahab and Jezebel. 21:14 He was supposed to be standing in for God and he's running. 21:17 But God feeds him, God takes care of him. 21:21 We serve amazing God. 21:23 (bright upbeat music) 21:27 After an arduous 200 mile journey, 21:30 he finally reached his destination. 21:32 What was that? It was a cave in the side of a hill. 21:35 He wanted to hide, he wanted to die. 21:38 (bright upbeat music) 21:43 He finally made it to the cave. 21:45 You know, in a cave, 21:47 the devil has all kinds of things going on. 21:49 You get in your own mind and the cave, 21:51 the devil has lots of things going on. 21:52 It's like, you know, you're alone. 21:55 You have no help, there's nobody to help you anymore. 21:58 He throws the darkness around you 22:00 and you're surrounded by darkness. 22:02 There's no one to help you, nobody to help you. 22:05 Well, no one cares. 22:07 These are the things the devil throws at you, 22:09 when you allow yourself like Elijah, to get caught in a cave 22:13 in this cave situation. 22:15 But God is always there. 22:17 God showed up and the word said, 22:19 "hey, what are you doing here, Elijah?" 22:22 "Well, Lord, I did all these great things." 22:25 Now he begins to pontificate 22:27 as if he's got all this pride and all this self-worth. 22:31 When a few minutes ago, 22:32 he didn't think he was worth anything anymore. 22:34 He begins spouting all these. 22:36 And then all of a sudden, the Lord says, 22:37 "hey, wake up, pay attention to this." 22:39 And, huge windstorm, but God wasn't in the windstorm. 22:45 An earthquake shook everything. 22:47 Scared, he thought that the rocks are going to fall on him, 22:49 but God wasn't in the earthquake. 22:52 And then there's a mighty fire, God was not in the fire. 22:56 And then there was the still, small voice of God. 22:59 This whisper of God and Elijah knew who that was. 23:03 He'd paid enough attention, he stood up and he went out 23:06 to the mouth of the cave to listen to what God had to say. 23:10 And again, the Lord says, "hey, Elijah, 23:12 what are you doing here?" 23:15 And he, again, kind of goes into this whole situation 23:17 about all the things he'd done, and all the great things. 23:21 As he's saying how great he is to God, 23:23 God says, "okay, it's time to appoint your successor, 23:27 I want you to find Elisha 23:28 and make him prophet in your step." 23:32 Wow Lord, okay. 23:33 He kind of thinks about that one a little bit. 23:36 Continues these things on, 23:37 you see God does some amazing things. 23:39 God provides for us, in this case for Elijah, 23:43 when he was in the cave. 23:44 He provided rest for him, get him healthy. 23:47 You know, we need good food, we need rest, 23:49 if we're going to hear the voice of God. 23:51 And there's many other things God did here too. 23:53 He reminds him that the work is God's. 23:56 And that God is always at work. 23:58 It's not our work, it's God's work. 24:01 In this case, God used him 24:03 to perform the work that God had ongoing. 24:07 And then the Lord also gave him a fresh commission, 24:09 a new commission, because he sit in this cave 24:10 and he's just thinking, "my life is over, 24:13 I've done all these great things, I've done everything, 24:15 but this is it, I'm done. 24:16 Just kill me Lord." 24:18 And the Lord gives him a fresh commission. 24:20 He tells him to also go appoint this other guy King, 24:23 and to do these various things, so a new commission. 24:27 And then the biggest thing is, we read through this story 24:34 and Elijah said, "you know, God, I'm the only one left, 24:36 it's just me. 24:37 Oh, woe is me, I feel so sorry for myself out 24:40 in this dark little cave." 24:42 God said, "hey, there are 7,000 others in Israel 24:46 who have not bowed their knee to Baal and other gods." 24:49 7,000, so many times we can be tempted and think 24:53 we're the only one. 24:55 We're like, "God, there's nobody else out here 24:57 that believes like I do. 24:59 There's nobody else out here who fights for your honor. 25:02 There's nobody else out here that does church 25:06 the way I do church." 25:07 Whatever it is, God says, "hey, there are many others, 25:14 pay attention, listen to me, I'm going to guide you, 25:16 and I'm going to direct you. 25:19 This is what needs to happen in our lives, 25:22 is that we get out of our cave situation. 25:24 We could quit feeling sorry for ourselves and move on. 25:29 Move on to God, 25:30 move on to what he is looking for in our lives. 25:34 Choose God this day. 25:36 Remember that's up on the top of Mount Carmel says, 25:39 "who will you serve, if God be God serve Him, 25:42 if Baal then serve him. 25:46 God had worked all these mighty miracles in his life, 25:49 and all of a sudden, he forgot God too. 25:52 It's easy to happen, 25:54 when we take our eyes off of the creator, 25:57 God of the universe. 25:59 Today I urge you, don't take your eyes off of God. 26:03 God is in pursuit of you, know there's a old story 26:07 is called, poem, I believe "The Hounds of Heaven". 26:10 God's seeks the hounds of heaven upon us to follow us 26:13 to the dug our footsteps, to call us back to Him. 26:17 Whatever's going on in your life, 26:19 whatever cave you maybe sitting in right now, 26:21 all the troubles and the trials and think, 26:23 "God, this is it, just kill me, I'm done." 26:27 No, no, no, God has a lot more in store for you. 26:31 God had more for his prophet. 26:33 You see, at the end of his journey, 26:37 a beautiful chariot, God's chariot with angels, 26:40 came down and picked him up 26:43 and those chariots headed right on up to heaven. 26:45 One of the only men in all of Biblical history 26:48 that never tasted of death. 26:50 That's what God had in store for his prophet. 26:53 What does God have in store for you? 26:55 Oh, let me tell you, God has a lot in store for you. 26:58 Choose God this day. 27:02 Wow, what a story, huh? 27:04 - And every word of it is true. 27:06 I needed to hear that part, to remind myself, 27:09 because I've been where Elijah found himself emotionally, 27:14 just spent. 27:17 Anyone can find themselves where Elijah was, 27:21 where I've been. 27:22 And it's so comforting to know that God doesn't wait for you 27:26 to climb back out of that pit, 27:28 come back up from that cave. 27:31 He comes to you, He's with you even in that dark pit. 27:35 If you've ever found yourself there, 27:38 if you're finding yourself there right now, 27:41 we've got a little book for you, "Overcoming the 3 D's: 27:45 Depression, Discouragement and Despair" 27:48 for just a small donation, this can be yours. 27:51 Simple steps to getting out of that pit. 27:55 It's written by Jim Ayer 27:57 and you can find 28:05 - Thanks for joining us for Country Wisdom. 28:07 - See you next time. 28:09 (bright upbeat music) |
Revised 2021-07-06